Minor damage reported from Sunday storm

Monday

May 20, 2013 at 11:30 AM

A pair of storms swept through central Iowa Sunday and Monday, splattering several inches of rain and dumping hail on already soaked ground. Only minor damage was being reported from Sunday's storm that dropped a tornado on the ground near Huxley with winds possibly as high as 110 mph. No tornadoes were spotted Monday night but the National Weather Service in Des Moines reported that funnel clouds were spotted south of Collins. The NWS also reported golf ball-sized hail in Maxwell.

A pair of storms swept through central Iowa Sunday and Monday, splattering several inches of rain and dumping hail on already soaked ground. Only minor damage was being reported from Sunday’s storm that dropped a tornado on the ground near Huxley with winds possibly as high as 110 mph. No tornadoes were spotted Monday night but the National Weather Service in Des Moines reported that funnel clouds were spotted south of Collins. The NWS also reported golf ball-sized hail in Maxwell.

The county’s severe weather sirens blared at 7:14 p.m. Sunday after trained storm spotters reported seeing a tornado near Slater and Huxley, and because of the threat of winds reaching 70 mph. At almost exactly the same time Monday, clear skies quickly gave way to black clouds as tornado warnings were issued for Story County around 7 p.m. For the next hour, radar showed splotches of yellow, orange and red moving northeast.

On Monday night, Doug Klemme, of Collins, left his shift at Barilla at 7:10 p.m. and almost immediately encountered pea-sized hail west of Nevada. He pulled over the side of the road and waited for the storm to clear.

When he got home nearly an hour later, “it was beautiful blue sky to the east and super-dark to the west of (Highway) 65.”

Klemme said he saw no significant damage during his slow-going drive home.

When Sunday’s storm had passed, there were some tree limbs down in Maxwell and a tin roof had blown off a farm building about one mile south of Huxley, said Keith Morgan, Story County emergency management coordinator.

“We were lucky with this one,” Morgan said.

John Kowalik, 46, who lives south of Huxley, said he saw the storm as he drove home from a graduation party in Huxley.

“We were driving 100 mph on a gravel road trying to get the basement,” he said.

“It was a huge cloud. It must have been a quarter-mile wide. It was pretty amazing.”

Kowalik’s daughter-in-law, Jessica Kowalik, 23, said they could see the wall cloud develop before the funnel appeared.

“At first I wasn’t too scared but then when it started to spin, it was coming in really fast and the winds picked up, and I got a little more nervous,” she said.

The tornado passed within a half-mile of her in-law’s home, said Kowalik, who lives in Story City.

“It was terrifying,” she said.

A nearby home had shingles blown off its roof, “and sheet metal was flying around,” Kowalik said.

Roof damage was reported to some farm buildings and a garage just south of the county line in Polk County, said Morgan, the county’s emergency management coordinator.

There also were reports of 8-inch diameter tree limbs being downed in Maxwell.

“It was very spotty damage,” Morgan said.

Morgan said sirens in the southern part of the county were activated Sunday because of the tornado that was reported by spotters. Sirens were activated elsewhere in the county because of the threat of winds in excess of 70 mph, he said.

“That prompted us to make the activation all the way up to Story City, Roland and McCallsburg,” he said. “There was a strong likelihood that with all the (high school) graduation ceremonies that people could have been outside.”

Although the dangerous wind speeds didn’t materialize in those areas, Morgan said the warning was necessary.

“We would rather err on the side of caution and give people a chance to get inside and get themselves protected,” he said.

Officials with the National Weather Service in Des Moines said a survey team was out Monday inspecting damage from the storm, which began southwest of Des Moines and quickly moved to the northeast.

The weather service said a short-lived tornado was embedded in a larger area of straight-line winds that swept across the area. The Huxley tornado was one of three to hit central Iowa Sunday night. The others were near Adel and Dallas Center.

The Huxley storm cut a path about five miles long and 250 yards wide, the weather service reported late Monday.

It was rated an EF1 tornado, a category that carries winds of between 86 and 110 mph.

The storm dumped 2.1 inches of rain on the Ames area.

The tornadoes ended a record streak of consecutive days in Iowa without a twister. The state had gone 359 days without a tornado, dating back to May 24, 2012.

Morgan said, “(Sunday) night surely proved that nature will come back around prove to be threatening.”

More thunderstorms rumbled across Mid-Iowa late Monday, and the chance of rain and thunderstorms remain in the forecast through Wednesday, with temperatures in the 60s and 70s.

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